1. What do you like the most about UCLA?
2. What you like the least about UCLA?
3. What was the hardest course in UCLA during your first year ?
It's O.K to answer only one question, if you cannot answer all.
I graduated in '07.
What I liked most:
1) My classmates for not being gunners and for sharing study materials and encouraging the group's rather than the individual's success in classes and Boards.
2) Faculty, for the most part, are approachable and very helpful.
3) Clinic structure with home cubes and tiered groups that comprise one 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year student that work together with the same patient pool. This ensures that the newer students to the clinic can receive some guidance from the more experienced students.
4) Administration seemed genuinely concerned with students' best interests and making changes, where possible, to improve the dental education.
What I liked least:
1) SOE (Software of Excellence, but lovingly referred to as the Software of Excrement), the software used for the digital patient charts. It's a pain in the ass trying to learn how to chart using that crap software.
2) Redundant public health classes that "teach" you how to be compassionate and understanding of different cultures. If you didn't learn this stuff when you were six years old, chances are that a dedicated course is going to have little effect.
3) Evidence Based Dentistry, the most pointless series of classes EVER.
4) Lots of removable prosth requirements that are tough to fulfill. There's generally a scramble during 4th year where half the class is looking for that last removable partial denture.
Hardest 1st year class:
Probably anatomy, but not because the material is hard. The problem is the volume of information you need to learn in ten weeks. Some people may say the series of removable labs is tough due to the tedious denture set-ups and the lab final you must pass (fabricate an ideal, properly occluding complete denture set-up in three hours) in order to see patient's in the removable clinic, but I didn't think it was that bad. It really depends on how good you are with your hands. If you suck with your hands, be prepared to struggle with removable prosth. I think you get three tries to pass the lab final, and I believe only 12 out of 88 in our class passed on the first attempt.
